But in the end . . .

Each time I begin a new LTC project, I am faced with a big challenge or two. The challenges always seem to differ, though, with each card making it's own demands for creativity and each piece of carving medium asking the question, "What are you going to keep, and what are you going to carve away?" At other times, it's the basic card idea that seems to be so elusive.

When I joined the the recent Star Wars swap, I knew almost immediately that I was going to carve a quotation. Ideally, I wanted a portrait and a quotation, but portraits have proven to be a bit out of my league. (Call me a chicken; I don't care.) I knew that if I could find the right quote, though, the rest of the card would follow.

Given that it was SHH's Star Wars swap, I wanted a quotation that was particularly meaningful to her -- and one that she hadn't already carved, herself. Tall order, don't you think? The odds were against me, but I started poking around on her blog anyway. I even picked her brain for favorites. Nothing seemed to satisfy me.

So, I slept on it. *smile*

When morning came, everything began to unfold! This was going to be my "All About the Swap Hostess" card.


THE BACKGROUND

Now, this one was going to be tricky. You see, I still wanted a portrait in the background, and I am a stubborn girl. What I could not do myself, I would just have to commission someone else to supply. That "someone else" was my daughter, a budding little artist, who graciously agreed to undertake the project. I used her sketch for the background. Don't ask me what I paid her -- it was not nearly enough!

Isn't she beautiful?

THE STAMP

Buried somewhere in SHH's newly rearranged Ruminations blog was the quotation I was after -- not just any quotation -- no, it was to be her own words! Here's the catch: I wanted it in her own handwriting, too. (No problem. Every computer comes with the SHH font installed with the operating system, doesn't it?)

I pulled out my stack of SHH LTCs, along with the little notes that accompanied them, and got to work. One letter at a time!!! Copy. Scan. Crop. Copy. Crop. Copy. Crop.


Fourteen rounds later . . . voila!
Not a perfect forgery, but every letter was indeed her own.
What do you think?



THE CARD

Yes, in the end, she's a Jedi.

Coupon Crazy

For years now, I have linked to the Hobby Lobby specials page because every other week they offer a 40% off coupon online. I schedule my shopping trips around that coupon. ;-)


Since I also like to shop at Michael's, I searched for a place in which to find their 40% and 50% off coupons, too.


I want to gather all of my favorite craft coupons into one spot and link to them in my sidebar. Feel free to make suggestions -- I'm happy to include others that aren't even available to me if anyone else finds this helpful.

Field Notes of the Carving Kind

Getting desperate???
(photo taken at the Gum Wall in Seattle, WA)

What are you looking for in a carving medium? Simple question, it would seem.

Even if we don't always stop to consider our expectations, they are still there.
They exist as we first run our hand across the surface of the material.
They are in our hands and our minds as we begin creating lines and curves, alternately discarding and retaining the material as we do.
They are present when we ink up and when we stamp down.
Expectations.

So, what am I looking for in a carving medium? I've got a list of answers to my question, and I wrote four pages that would have drowned any hapless reader in my thoughts -- but I slept on it before posting. That was a good thing. Instead of publishing the tome, I have attempted to distill my ideas into one conclusion, and it is this:

I want a carving material that will allow me to improve across time, until I've reached the limits of what I can produce as a carver. When I have reached that point, I want it to be because of my own limited skill, not because of the materials that I use.

Every other expectation, however important, seems to pale when I consider that one core thought.

Recently, I was asked to try three new carving materials (ECO, Smooth-Cut, and Karve Majik) to see how well they performed with my carving needle. Here are my brief thoughts:

1. The Karve Majik had to be abandoned pretty quickly for me. Instead of cleanly slicing the material, my (very sharp) needle pushed the material into tiny, gummy hills which eventually gave to the pressure of the needle with unpredictable results. Very frustrating.

2. Smooth-Cut and ECO, while different in many other respects, were the same in the one way that mattered to me most: Their grainy consistency made it impossible for me to get absolutely smooth cuts with my needle. This doesn't make as big a difference with a large, bold image as it does with a detailed one, and I enjoy the challenge of creating a fairly detailed image.

Here is the bottom line for me: The best images that I could produce with these materials looked like I had carved them two years ago. I'm not the most skilled carver among us, that's for sure -- I don't pretend to be. When I draw conclusions, I'm not comparing my work or my expectations to that of anyone else. I just don't want to be forced back to an earlier level of skill and left there.

Period.